Former January Ending Through 52 Weeks
(Sophomore Lounge) LP $19.00 (Out-of-stock)
The inner logic in People Skills, beyond a cloud of ambiguity, is a remarkable balance between the shattered plaster electronics and Jesse Dewlow’s melodious chording. The blunted-ass casio beats and the haunted lonerman vox riding tremble alongside make it perfect. The encased-in-dust-for-a-few-winters production value is just gravy. Includes DL card
Magnet Hill
(I Dischi Del Barone) 7-inch $15.00
Rather minimal and more based on guitar than previous efforts by Jesse Dewlow, such that “a murky sub-underground feel resembling South Island NZ pop played inside an armored car” line might be on point, but these two downer gems are rooted elsewhere. Plus, hey hey, locked grooves. With insert. Edition of 200
Mount Moriah Tocsin
(Alien Passengers) Cassette $10.00 (Out-of-stock)
“ ‘Diamond Ring’ is a relatively songlike blob with a tin-can drum box tapping away and loops so raw they sound like they were recorded onto masking tape. Jesse Dewlow’s vocals are delivered in a mush-mouthed monotone from beneath a crushing fog of room tone rumble and negative-fidelity hiss. Behind the obtuse nods toward song, form is a stream of errant chatter from an unrelated conversation. A shuffle of mundane extraneous incidental motion persists throughout the album, acting as a sort of anchor as the seasick loops degrade and warp… I hear ocean waves (on ‘Harboring Criminals’, which opens side two), the wind blowing on a microphone, the clicks of someone shifting in their chair. The atmosphere is one of a private performance that the listener is surreptitiously eavesdropping on. And then the album ends with a major catharsis: a full-sounding church organ and chanting punctuated by synth crackle.” c47
Telephone Booth
(All Gone) Cassette $6.00
“The overall mood seems to be informed by codeine and heat stroke, but for the most part Telephone Booth is an album of songs played on guitars and keyboards with that damned drum machine still making sickly clicks as Dewlow distractedly moans verses and choruses. If you squint, you can imagine this to be the demo cassette for a future Kranky album, distortion and mistakes left in with the intent to smooth them all out later.” c47
Trail of White Flies b/w Painting of Trial Medicine
(No Label New Zealand) 8-inch (lathe cut) $30.00
Screen-printed hand-folded, stamped sleeves with extra photocopy sleeve. Edition of 40
Tricephalic Head
(Siltbreeze) LP $16.00 (Out-of-stock)
Following a self-titled cassette (Psychic Mule, 2013), People Skills serve up a first LP of deceptively relaxed songs. As per usual, deductions are to be made on the consciousness of the character; the important thing is that in the ensuing spatial vagueness, Jesse Dewlow really comes into his own. The influence of Graham Lambkin has become so staggeringly panoramic over the past decade it seems to demand participation and here it is, inscribed by the chance blurts of Die Spielverderber and the slow attitude of The University Punx, and played from the loner-folk-side-in — that is, for feeling felt. And the laziness is projective; always managing to sound looser and more vivid than it seemed a couple of seconds before, shifting from lyrical to terse by way of The Rebel. And if that doesn’t get you, consider the mortal words of John Berryman: “Well hell / I’m not writing an autobiography-in-verse.” As a first-person hallucination recorded memory, this plays somewhere between full-blown Dewlow narrative and snapshot. Regardless, we’re blazing into a new era and this one will go perfect in one of those new rabbit-computer cafés. Include free download card